very tired, for I was out twice in the night taking care of sick
people. But you must come to see me again some day. I dare say you and
Marilla have made friends with each other. Now we must go, I suppose,"
and Nan Prince, still silent,--for the pleasure of this time was
almost too great,--took hold of the doctor's outstretched hand, and
they went slowly up the garden walk together. As they drove slowly
down the street they met the people who were coming from church, and
the child sat up very straight in the old gig, with her feet on the
doctor's medicine-box, and was sure that everybody must be envying
her. She thought it was more pleasant than ever that afternoon, as
they passed through the open country outside the village; the fields
and the trees were marvelously green, and the distant river was
shining in the sun. Nan looked anxiously for the gray farmhouse for
two or three minutes before they came in sight of it, but at last it
showed itself, standing firm on the hillside. It seemed a long time
since she had left home in the morning, but this beautiful day was to
be one of the landmarks of her memory. Life had suddenly grown much
larger, and her familiar horizon had vanished and she discovered a
great distance stretching far beyond the old limits. She went gravely
into the familiar kitchen, holding fast the bits of box and the
periwinkle flowers, quite ready to answer her grandmother's questions,
though she was only too certain that it would be impossible to tell
any one the whole dear story of that June Sunday.
A little later, as Marilla came sedately home, she noticed in the
driveway some fresh hoofmarks which pointed toward the street, and
quickly assured herself that they could not have been made very long
before. "I wonder what the two of 'em have been doing all the
afternoon?" she said to herself. "She's a little lady, that child is;
and it's a burnin' shame she should be left to run wild. I never set
so much by her mother's looks as some did, but growin' things has
blooms as much as they have roots and prickles--and even them Thachers
will flower out once in a while."
VI
IN SUMMER WEATHER
One morning Dr. Leslie remembered an old patient whom he liked to go
to see now and then, perhaps more from the courtesy and friendliness
of the thing than from any hope of giving professional assistance. The
old sailor, Captain Finch, had long before been condemned as
unseaworthy, having suffered for many years from the effects of a bad
fall on shipboard. He was a cheerful and wise person, and the doctor
was much attached to him, besides knowing that he had borne his
imprisonment with great patience, for his life on one of the most
secluded farms of the region, surrounded by his wife's kinsfolk, who
were all landsmen, could hardly be called anything else. The doctor
had once made a voyage to Fayal and from thence to England in a
sailing-vessel, having been somewhat delicate in health in his younger
days, and this made him a more intelligent listener to the captain's
stories than was often available.
Dr. Leslie had brought his case of medicines from mere force of habit,
but by way of special prescription he had taken also a generous
handful of his best cigars, and wrapped them somewhat clumsily in one
of the large sheets of letter-paper which lay on his study table near
by. Also he had stopped before the old sideboard in the carefully
darkened dining-room, and taken a bottle of wine from one of its
cupboards. "This will do him more good than anything, poor old
fellow," he told himself, with a sudden warmth in his own heart and a
feeling of grateful pleasure because he had thought of doing the
kindness.
Marilla called eagerly from the kitchen window to ask where he was
going, putting her hand out hastily to part the morning-glory vines,
which had climbed their strings and twisted their stems together until
they shut out the world from their planter's sight. But the doctor
only answered that he should be back at dinner time, and settled
himself comfortably in his carriage, smiling as he thought of
Marilla's displeasure. She seldom allowed a secret to escape her, if
she were once fairly on the scent of it, though she grumbled now, and
told herself that she only cared to know for the sake of the people
who might come, or to provide against the accident of his being among
the missing in case of sudden need. She found life more interesting
when there was even a small mystery to be puzzled over. It was
impossible for Dr. Leslie to resist teasing his faithful hand-maiden
once in a while, but he did it with proper gravity and respect, and
their friendship was cemented by these sober jokes rather than torn
apart.
The horse knew as well as his master that nothing of particular
importance was in hand, and however well he always caught the spirit
of the occasion when there was need for hurry, he now jogged along the
road, going slowly where the trees cast a pleasant shade, and paying
more attention to the flies than to anything else. The doctor seemed
to be in deep thought, and old Major understood that no notice was to
be taken of constant slight touches of the whip which his master held
carelessly. It had been hot, dusty weather until the day and night
before, when heavy showers had fallen; the country was looking fresh,
and the fields and trees were washed clean at last from the white dust
that had powdered them and given the farms a barren and discouraged
look.
They had come in sight of Mrs. Thacher's house on its high hillside,
and were just passing the abode of Mrs. Meeker, which was close by the
roadside in the low land. This was a small, weather-beaten dwelling,
and the pink and red hollyhocks showed themselves in fine array
against its gray walls. Its mistress's prosaic nature had one most
redeeming quality in her love for flowers and her gift in making them
grow, and the doctor forgave her many things for the sake of the
bright little garden in the midst of the sandy lands which surrounded
her garden with their unshaded barrenness. The road that crossed these
was hot in summer and swept by bitter winds in winter. It was like a
bit of desert dropped by mistake among the green farms and spring-fed
forests that covered the rest of the river uplands.
No sentinel was ever more steadfast to his duty in time of war and
disorder than Mrs. Meeker, as she sat by the front window, from which
she could see some distance either way along the crooked road. She was
often absent from her own house to render assistance of one sort or
another among her neighbors, but if she were at home it was impossible
for man, woman, or child to go by without her challenge or careful
inspection. She made couriers of her neighbors, and sent these errand
men and women along the country roads or to the village almost daily.
She was well posted in the news from both the village and the country
side, and however much her acquaintances scolded about her, they found
it impossible to resist the fascination of her conversation, and few
declined to share in the banquet of gossip which she was always ready
to spread. She was quick witted, and possessed of many resources and
much cleverness of a certain sort; but it must be confessed that she
had done mischief in her day, having been the murderer of more than
one neighbor's peace of mind and the assailant of many a reputation.
But if she were a dangerous inmate of one's household, few were so
attractive or entertaining for the space of an afternoon visit, and it
was usually said, when she was seen approaching, that she would be
sure to have something to tell. Out in the country, where so many
people can see nothing new from one week's end to the other, it is,
after all, a great pleasure to have the latest particulars brought to
one's door, as a townsman's newspaper is.
Mrs. Meeker knew better than to stop Dr. Leslie if he were going
anywhere in a hurry; she had been taught this lesson years ago; but
when she saw him journeying in such a leisurely way some instinct
assured her of safety, and she came out of her door like a
Jack-in-the-box, while old Major, only too ready for a halt, stood
still in spite of a desperate twitch of the reins, which had as much
effect as pulling at a fish-hook which has made fast to an anchor.
Mrs. Meeker feigned a great excitement.
"I won't keep you but a moment," she said, "but I want to hear what
you think about Mis' Thacher's chances."
"Mrs. Thacher's?" repeated the doctor, wonderingly.
"She's doing well, isn't she? I don't suppose that she will ever be a
young woman again."
"I don't know why, but I took it for granted that you was goin'
there," explained Mrs. Meeker, humbly. "She has seemed to me as if she
was failing all summer. I was up there last night, and I never said so
to her, but she had aged dreadfully. I wonder if it's likely she's had
a light shock? Sometimes the fust one's kind o' hidden; comes by night
or somethin', and folks don't know till they begins to feel the damage
of it."
"She hasn't looked very well of late," said the doctor. For once in
his life he was willing to have a friendly talk, Mrs. Meeker thought,
and she proceeded to make the most of her opportunity.
"I think the care of that girl of Ad'line's has been too much for her
all along," she announced, "she's wild as a hawk, and a perfect
torment. One day she'll come strollin' in and beseechin' me for a
bunch o' flowers, and the next she'll be here after dark scarin' me
out o' my seven senses. She rigged a tick-tack here the other night
against the window, and my heart was in my mouth. I thought 'twas a
warnin' much as ever I thought anything in my life; the night before
my mother died 'twas in that same room and against that same winder
there came two or three raps, and my sister Drew and me we looked at
each other, and turned cold all over, and mother set right up in bed
the next night and looked at that winder and then laid back dead. I
was all sole alone the other evenin',--Wednesday it was,--and when I
heard them raps I mustered up, and went and put my head out o' the
door, and I couldn't see nothing, and when I went back, knock--knock,
it begun again, and I went to the door and harked. I hoped I should
hear somebody or 'nother comin' along the road, and then I heard
somethin' a rus'lin' amongst the sunflowers and hollyhocks, and then
there was a titterin', and come to find out 'twas that young one. I
chased her up the road till my wind give out, and I had to go and set
on the stone wall, and come to. She won't go to bed till she's a mind
to. One night I was up there this spring, and she never come in until
after nine o'clock, a dark night, too; and the pore old lady was in
distress, and thought she'd got into the river. I says to myself there
wa'n't no such good news. She told how she'd be'n up into Jake an'
Martin's oaks, trying to catch a little screech owl. She belongs with
wild creatur's, I do believe,--just the same natur'. She'd better be
kept to school, 'stead o' growin' up this way; but she keeps the rest
o' the young ones all in a brile, and this last teacher wouldn't have
her there at all. She'd toll off half the school into the pasture at
recess time, and none of 'em would get back for half an hour."
"What's a tick-tack? I don't remember," asked the doctor, who had been
smiling now and then at this complaint.
"They tie a nail to the end of a string, and run it over a bent pin
stuck in the sash, and then they get out o' sight and pull, and it
clacks against the winder, don't ye see? Ain't it surprisin' how them
devil's tricks gets handed down from gineration to gineration, while
so much that's good is forgot," lamented Mrs. Meeker, but the doctor
looked much amused.
"She's a bright child," he said, "and not over strong. I don't believe
in keeping young folks shut up in the schoolhouses all summer long."
Mrs. Meeker sniffed disapprovingly. "She's tougher than ellum roots. I
believe you can't kill them peakèd-looking young ones. She'll run like
a fox all day long and live to see us all buried. I can put up with
her pranks; 't is of pore old Mis' Thacher I'm thinkin'. She's had
trouble enough without adding on this young 'scape-gallows. You had
better fetch her up to be a doctor," Mrs. Meeker smilingly continued,
"I was up there yisterday, and one of the young turkeys had come
hoppin' and quawkin' round the doorsteps with its leg broke, and she'd
caught it and fixed it off with a splint before you could say Jack
Robi'son. She told how it was the way you'd done to Jim Finch that
fell from the hay-rigging and broke his arm over to Jake an' Martin's,
haying time."
"I remember she was standing close by, watching everything I did,"
said the doctor, his face shining with interest and pleasure. "I
shall have to carry her about for clerk. Her father studied medicine
you know. It is the most amazing thing how people inherit"--but he did
not finish his sentence and pulled the reins so quickly that the wise
horse knew there was no excuse for not moving forward.
Mrs. Meeker had hoped for a longer interview. "Stop as you come back,
won't you?" she asked. "I'm goin' to pick you some of the handsomest
poppies I ever raised. I got the seed from my sister-in-law's cousin,
she that was 'Miry Gregg, and they do beat everything. They wilt so
that it ain't no use to pick 'em now, unless you was calc'latin' to
come home by the other road. There's nobody sick about here, is
there?" to which the doctor returned a shake of the head and the
information that he should be returning that way about noon. As he
drove up the hill he assured himself with great satisfaction that he
believed he hadn't told anything that morning which would be repeated
all over town before night, while his hostess returned to her house
quite dissatisfied with the interview, though she hoped for better
fortune on Dr. Leslie's return.
For his part, he drove on slowly past the Thacher farmhouse, looking
carefully about him, and sending a special glance up the lane in
search of the invalid turkey. "I should like to see how she managed
it," he told himself half aloud. "If she shows a gift for such things
I'll take pains to teach her a lesson or two by and by when she is
older.... Come Major, don't go to sleep on the road!" and in a few
minutes the wagon was out of sight, if the reader had stood in the
Thacher lane, instead of following the good man farther on his errand
of mercy and good fellowship.
At that time in the morning most housekeepers were busy in their
kitchens, but Mrs. Thacher came to stand in her doorway, and shaded
her forehead and eyes with her hand from the bright sunlight, as she
looked intently across the pastures toward the river. She seemed
anxious and glanced to and fro across the fields, and presently she
turned quickly at the sound of a footstep, and saw her young
grand-daughter coming from the other direction round the corner of the
house. The child was wet and a little pale, though she evidently had
been running.
"What have you been doin' now?" asked the old lady fretfully. "I won't
have you gettin' up in the mornin' before I am awake and stealin' out
of the house. I think you are drowned in the river or have broken your
neck fallin' out of a tree. Here it is after ten o'clock. I've a mind
to send you to bed, Nanny; who got you out of the water, for in it
you've been sure enough?"
"I got out myself," said the little girl. "It was deep, though," and
she began to cry, and when she tried to cover her eyes with her
already well-soaked little apron, she felt quite broken-hearted and
unnerved, and sat down dismally on the doorstep.
"Come in, and put on a dry dress," said her grandmother, not unkindly;
"that is, if there's anything but your Sunday one fit to be seen. I've
told you often enough not to go playin' in the river, and I've wanted
you more than common to go out to Jake and Martin's to borrow me a
little cinnamon. You're a real trial this summer. I believe the bigger
you are the worse you are. Now just say what you've been about. I
declare I shall have to go and have a talk with the doctor, and he'll
scold you well. I'm gettin' old and I can't keep after you; you ought
to consider me some. You'll think of it when you see me laying dead,
what a misery you've be'n. No schoolin' worth namin';" grumbled Mrs.
Thacher, as she stepped heavily to and fro in the kitchen, and the
little girl disappeared within the bed-room. In a few minutes,
however, her unusual depression was driven away by the comfort of dry
garments, and she announced triumphantly that she had found a whole
flock of young wild ducks, and that she had made a raft and chased
them about up and down the river, until the raft had proved
unseaworthy, and she had fallen through into the water. Later in the
day somebody came from the Jake and Martin homesteads to say that
there must be no more pulling down of the ends of the pasture fences.
The nails had easily let go their hold of the old boards, and a stone
had served our heroine for a useful shipwright's hammer, but the
young cattle had strayed through these broken barriers and might have
done great damage if they had been discovered a little later,--having
quickly hied themselves to a piece of carefully cultivated land. The
Jake and Martin families regarded Nan with a mixture of dread and
affection. She was bringing a new element into their prosaic lives,
and her pranks afforded them a bit of news almost daily. Her
imagination was apt to busy itself in inventing tales of her unknown
aunt, with which she entertained a grandchild of Martin Dyer, a little
girl of nearly her own age. It seemed possible to Nan that any day a
carriage drawn by a pair of prancing black horses might be seen
turning up the lane, and that a lovely lady might alight and claim her
as her only niece. Why this event had not already taken place the
child never troubled herself to think, but ever since Marilla had
spoken of this aunt's existence, the dreams of her had been growing
longer and more charming, until she seemed fit for a queen, and her
unseen house a palace. Nan's playmate took pleasure in repeating these
glowing accounts to her family, and many were the head-shakings and
evil forebodings over the untruthfulness of the heroine of this story.
Little Susan Dyer's only aunt, who was well known to her, lived as
other people did in a comparatively plain and humble house, and it was
not to be wondered at that she objected to hearing continually of an
aunt of such splendid fashion. And yet Nan tried over and over again
to be in some degree worthy of the relationship. She must not be too
unfit to enter upon more brilliant surroundings whenever the time
should come,--she took care that her pet chickens and her one doll
should have high-sounding names, such as would seem proper to the
aunt, and, more than this, she took a careful survey of the house
whenever she was coming home from school or from play, lest she might
come upon her distinguished relative unawares. She had asked her
grandmother more than once to tell her about this mysterious
kinswoman, but Mrs. Thacher proved strangely uncommunicative, fearing
if she answered one easy question it might involve others that were
more difficult.
The good woman grew more and more anxious to fulfil her duty to this
troublesome young housemate; the child was strangely dear and
companionable in spite of her frequent naughtiness. It seemed, too, as
if she could do whatever she undertook, and as if she had a power
which made her able to use and unite the best traits of her ancestors,
the strong capabilities which had been illy balanced or allowed to run
to waste in others. It might be said that the materials for a fine
specimen of humanity accumulate through several generations, until a
child appears who is the heir of all the family wit and attractiveness
and common sense, just as one person may inherit the worldly wealth of
his ancestry.
VII
FOR THE YEARS TO COME
Late one summer afternoon Dr. Leslie was waked from an unusually long
after-dinner nap by Marilla's footsteps along the hall. She remained
standing in the doorway, looking at him for a provoking length of
time, and finally sneezed in her most obtrusive and violent manner. At
this he sat up quickly and demanded to be told what was the matter,
adding that he had been out half the night before, which was no news
to the faithful housekeeper.
"There, I'm sure I didn't mean to wake you up," she said, with an
apparent lack of self-reproach. "I never can tell whether you are
asleep or only kind of drowsin'. There was a boy here just now from
old Mis' Cunningham's over on the b'ilin' spring road. They want you
to come over quick as convenient. She don't know nothin', the boy
said."
"Never did," grumbled the doctor. "I'll go, toward night, but I can't
do her any good."
"An' Mis' Thacher is out here waitin' too, but she says if you're busy
she'll go along to the stores and stop as she comes back. She looks to
me as if she was breakin' up," confided Marilla in a lower tone.
"Tell her I'm ready now," answered the doctor in a more cordial tone,
and though he said half to himself and half to Marilla that here was
another person who expected him to cure old age, he spoke
compassionately, and as if his heart were heavy with the thought of
human sorrow and suffering. But he greeted Mrs. Thacher most
cheerfully, and joked about Marilla's fear of a fly, as he threw open
the blinds of the study window which was best shaded from the sun.
Mrs. Thacher did indeed look changed, and the physician's quick eyes
took note of it, and, as he gathered up some letters and newspapers
which had been strewn about just after dinner, he said kindly that he
hoped she had no need of a doctor. It was plain that the occasion
seemed an uncommon one to her. She wore her best clothes, which would
not have been necessary for one of her usual business trips to the
village, and it seemed to be difficult for her to begin her story. Dr.
Leslie, taking a purely professional view of the case, began to
consider what form of tonic would be most suitable, whether she had
come to ask for one or not.
"I want to have a good talk with you about the little gell; Nanny, you
know;" she said at last, and the doctor nodded, and, explaining that
there seemed to be a good deal of draught through the room, crossed
the floor and gently shut the door which opened into the hall. He
smiled a little as he did it, having heard the long breath outside
which was the not unfamiliar signal of Marilla's presence. If she were
curious, she was a discreet keeper of secrets, and the doctor had more
than once indulged her in her sinful listening by way of friendliness
and reward. But this subject promised to concern his own affairs too
closely, and he became wary of the presence of another pair of ears.
He was naturally a man of uncommon reserve, and most loyal in keeping
his patients' secrets. If clergymen knew their congregations as well
as physicians do, the sermons would be often more closely related to
the parish needs. It was difficult for the world to understand why,
when Dr. Leslie was anything but prone to gossip, Marilla should have
been possessed of such a wealth of knowledge of her neighbors'
affairs. Strange to say this wealth was for her own miserly pleasure
and not to be distributed, and while she often proclaimed with
exasperating triumph that she had known for months some truth just
discovered by others, she was regarded by her acquaintances as if she
were a dictionary written in some foreign language; immensely
valuable, but of no practical use to themselves. It was sometimes
difficult not to make an attempt to borrow from her store of news, but
nothing delighted her more than to be so approached, and to present
impenetrable barriers of discretion to the enemy.
"How is Nanny getting on?" the doctor asked. "She looks stronger than
she did a year ago."